Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some free UFC, but the Fight Night cards are usually a collection of guys who can’t crack the TV matches on pay-per-view cards, or used to be A-listers but have taken a few beatings of late… or have been winning, but are so hated that nobody will pay to see them (Josh Koscheck, take a bow).

All that changed last night, as the UFC’s bottom tier put on a show of brutality that had audiences, both live and at home, wincing often.

When “The Road Warrior”, Jonathan Goulet and Mike “Quick” Swick threw down, few would have thought Goulet stood a chance at victory, but few would have guessed Swick would drop him with a fierce fist, and then hold Goulet’s head in one hand while continuously pounding on it with the other. A 33 second KO will not be Goulet’s career highlight.

Nor will he look back fondly on his hairstyle of the evening – a bleached orange sunburst shaved into his cranium with a spraypainted “Tapout” on one side and a “mmafights.com” (or something – it was hard to make out as it ran around his head) on the other. Leave it to the guys who wear “Condom Depot” on their backside to go the classy head sponsor route.

Then “Killa B” Ben Saunders just demolished Marine veteran Brandon Wolff, in front of a military crowd no less, drilling him relentlessly with head kicks and Muay Thai knees until Wolff had no choice but to stop, drop and roll away, all but verbally tapping. The mouse on Wolff’s head stetched from one end of his forehead to the other.

It wasn’t a mouse actually, it was a medium-sized gopher.

The gut check of the night came in the Steve “Robot” Cantwell / Razak “Razor” Al-Hassan affair, when the Razor found himself trapped in a decent arm-bar but simply refused to tap until his elbow bent the wrong way.

Yikes.

Slightly more disturbing than the break itself was ex-WEC light heavyweight champ Cantwell’s reaction to it; he ran about the ring making twig-snapping motions with his hands, repeating the words “broke it!” with loud pride to anyone who was paying attention.

Classy.

I could almost have turned off the TV by that point, reasoning that Josh Koscheck is the UFC equivalent of watching paint dry and his opponent, Yoshiyuki Yoshida, while unbeaten for three years, hadn’t exactly been fighting the world’s best; certainly not a level of opponent that dictated he headline a UFC event, anyway.

But it was the night of the dramatic finish as Koscheck drilled a right hand at Yoshida before the Japanese fighter could dodge or counter, and as he bounced back off the cage, out on his feet, Koscheck got the sort of free shot you usually only see in movies.

Big right hook. Flush on the cheek. Yoshida goes limp and cross-eyed, dropping straight to the floor where he begins twitching.

Any MMA fan knows the annoyance of having to explain to a non-fan that it isn’t just about brutality, and that the best fights can end up with few punches thrown. But this wasn’t that night. This was the night of devastation.

Sue me, but I loved every moment.

UPDATE: The biggest moment of brutality on last night’s card was one that wasn’t shown on TV, but you can find it online if you’re really interested. It involved lightweight fighter Corey Hill, who launched a kick at his opponent Dale Hartt, which was blocked by Hart’s shin.

Hill’s foot wrapped around the shin like a sock full of quarters as his femur broke clear in two, leaving the foot hanging by nothing but skin as the fighter stumbled backwards to the mat.

It was a particularly nast moment, but one that comes not as a result of any perceived thugishness, but as a random chance. I’ve seen the same injury happen in soccer more times than I’d care to remember.

Again, I’m not going to link to it, but you can find it out there online if you’re into that kind of thing. Hill will be out of action for around 18 months.

The injury update on Razor All-Hassan is that his elbow was dislocated and he’s been released from hospital under his own steam. Yoshida and Goulet also went to hospital for concussion, and both were home later in the night.